Day 16 of the 25 Days of TF-Mas! (Contains fusion/merging)

“What do you want?”

It was an innocuous question, one that never really bothered Kat before. In fact, it was most often heard in a frantic, pleading tone from one of Kat’s victims as a last-ditch attempt to understand their cruel fate. It was a pathetic question. Pointless. The answer never mattered before, and yet lately it was all Kat could think about. The magical being had been roaming around feeding off of human emotion and desire for so long it had begun to make little games out of it. Create self-imposed rules for it to abide by to make it more entertaining. Without these games and restrictions Kat’s life had become dull with how much power it held over the meek and inconsequential humans it changed. As time went on, and especially with the game it currently played, it began to wonder about the nature of desire. It was these desires that Kat preyed upon most, particularly now. The twisting of the wishes of its victims provided sustenance and pleasure all in one, but then that woman Kat turned to a snowman asked that all too familiar question.

“What do you want?”

This time it was different. It wasn’t just the impotent screech of a weak creature that was being morphed and changed. The question felt personal, somehow. A challenge. One that Kat suddenly found it difficult to answer. What did Kat want? Was the answer so simple as to manipulate humans like putty? Was Kat so simple a creature? The idea made its head pound, made all the more upsetting by its inability to answer otherwise. So it was that Kat stared down the barista girl whose desire all along had been to catch Kat and uncover its game, and asked of her the same, aching question that was burning in its own head.

“Well?” Kat pressed, its voice breaking a bit with impatience. Not at all like the composed mastermind that Elliott had built the creature up to be thus far.

“I…” Elliott was rather stunned for her part. Things had taken a complete heel turn from anything she had been expecting. Just days ago she was working at the little café, serving drinks and little cookies and the like. Her growing obsession to investigate the disappearance of a regular had led her to a nightmarish yet alluring discovery; the dark haired, beanie wearing woman she’d been chasing had been transforming people into… things. Elliott had born witness to a woman physically turning into the very pine tree that now sat in the living room she found herself in now. Though it was impossible to tell for certain, Elliott suspected the inflatable outside and even the wreath to once have been human as well. And now, here she was, face to face with the perpetrator, being asked what she wanted. Something about the way she spoke, the unhinged look in her eye, made her want to give serious consideration to how she went about answering the question. She swallowed hard, knowing she might not be long for this world, at least in her current form, if she answered poorly.

“Speak up!” Kat demanded, stomping her furred boot, and causing the lights to flicker.

“I… want,” Elliott took a breath, “I want to understand.”

Kat stared at the barista, looking her up and down like a snake would a mouse, “To understand?” Kat repeated, as if asking if this was her final answer.

Elliott nodded, looking down at her shoes, “I want to understand what’s going on here… I mean, that’s what I wanted before at least… I saw what happened and I should have been horrified. I was horrified, but then I was… curious. I came here and found myself more and more intrigued and I want to know why. I want to understand these feelings I’m having.”

“Is that… so?” Kat seemed to deescalate in anger and emotion after taking this all in. The mystical being began to contemplate the situation, “I think I can help you with that,” Kat said with a mischievous grin, but not the malicious one it had shown to all its previous victims. “You see, I want to understand something too. I want to understand human desire. I’ve spent so long using it to my own ends, but I’ve come to realize that I do not really know why I do this, or why humans do what they do. I cannot stand this ignorance.”

“And how exactly would you help me?” Elliott asked, wary of Kat’s intentions.

"I can give you the power to do what I do, to see it from my perspective. In return, I’ll be able to see the exact same thing from your perspective. You’ll understand me, and I’ll understand you.” Kat offered, reaching a hand out to Elliott.

“And… if I refuse…?” Elliott asked, suspecting that Kat may be telling her more than it was asking.

“Well, then I’ll crush you like a maggot and find someone else,” Kat said, confirming Elliott’s suspicion. The flat, matter-of-fact way Kat said this made it all the more believable.

Out of options, and undeniably curious either way, Elliott took Kat’s hand, sealing their deal. The surge of energy that flowed into Elliott in that moment was enough to instantly roll her eyes into the back of her head. It felt like a river of high voltage current was flowing up her arm and coursing straight through every other part of her body. Her teeth chattered with the effort and a wind without an obvious source whipped her hair back as she struggled to look at Kat. The beanie wearing woman had changed into a vaguely humanoid shaped crackling light. Kat flowed its entire being into Elliott, and the poor girl felt like her heart may burst from her chest from the force. The lights in the humble home flickered and sparked and furniture rattled like the home was caught in an earthquake. Finally, just as it became too much, it was over. Elliott stood alone in Vanessa’s home. The home of the first victim. Unintentionally Elliott called forth a memory of what had happened to her. She was her own hands flattening and molding the prior homeowner into wrapping paper. Elliott clutched her pounding head from the strain and collapsed.

'Wakey wakey’ the voice speaking was crystal clear and far away at the same time, almost like it was more of a thought. It felt like an inner voice, the kind that reads you a story while you followed along with your eyes, but it wasn’t Elliott’s voice. It was Kat. The barista pushed herself to stand in the living room and gathered her bearings. She was still alone, or so her eyes would have her believe. She could feel Kat’s presence within, and through whatever strange bond they now shared, she could intuit that they had merged somehow. What exactly this meant for Elliot was uncertain. For now, she decided to walk off the aches in her muscles, which she blamed on Kat’s little merging stunt. As she passed by a hallway mirror, she did a double take. The person in the mirror resembled Elliott, certainly, but there were some major differences. For one, her hair had grown longer and faded to a stark white near the tips. Her eyes had changed too, now glowing a faint blue color as though she were charged with electricity. Spurred on by these changes, Elliot checked herself over, finding that her body had changed as well. Her bosom had gained modest size, though nothing cartoonishly overbearing. In fact, most of her body had gained some amount of mass – she was taller by a few inches, and the areas already housing her body fat had increased proportionally. Elliott let out a sigh. If it had to be so, she supposed that she was grateful the changes hadn’t been more freakish. She knew Kat was capable of doing so, after all.

The light of the sun hitting the snow caused a blinding white shine when Elliott opened the door, forcing her to shield her eyes. Once she grew used to it, she stepped down onto the sidewalk and looked around. She felt… good. The cold no longer seemed to bother her, and while she had no clue how to utilize it, she could feel Kat’s power inside her body, bouncing off every boundary and filling her with what felt like limitless energy. Elliott basked in it for a moment, feeling as though she could run forever until Kat’s voice spoke up again.

‘So? What do you want now?’

The question brought a smile to Elliott’s face, “I want to see what we can do.”